Regardless of why someone started using drugs or alcohol (usually it was simple curiosity), those who continued using or abusing some substance did so because the drugs “solved” a problem (or problems) for them. 

            Example: the parents of a child 5 or 6 get a divorce, then daddy doesn’t live there anymore.  This is a big confusion and upset for a small child who does not have the experience in life to figure it out.  But still, he needs to explain this confusion.  He decides the reason daddy is not there is because “I did something wrong, I can’t be loved.”  While this is obviously a bad explanation, for him at the time it is an explanation.  

            Later in life as he starts to be interested in having relationships, he runs into this idea about himself.  Whenever a relationship starts to get too “real” or someone gets “too close”, he does something stupid and blows them off.  It is not a conscious decision, but he gets scared and feels he will get hurt, because he can’t be loved and is wrong.  He then tends to follow a pattern of starting a relationship, it getting too real, him blowing the relationship off.  He has lots of explanations about how “needy” they are, or “pushy” or whatever.  

           After a while, when he starts experimenting with drugs or alcohol, he discovers it is much easier to be with chicks when he’s loaded.  The relationships then become centered around drugs, not about two people engaging in a relationship. It isn’t as analytical as he has to get high in order to have a relationship, but he feels he can have a relationship when he’s getting high.

.           Fast forward many months or years to the guy being both emotionally and mentally addicted to drugs to the point of knowing he cannot survive without them.  Yet he also knows drugs are killing him and he can’t survive with them.  

            He’s tried to kick and can’t, because he hurts too much.  He hates himself for the pain he’s caused his parents. He knows death would be easier and solve all of the turmoil, pain, guilt and pointlessness of his life.  Maybe he should overdose.

             Either he breaks down with his mother or father and asks for help, or friends or other loved ones convince him that he needs to do something to handle his life.  He might get busted and the courts (attorney, Probation Officer, Judge) determine if he goes to rehab he won’t have to spend as long in jail.  This is often a relief to the guy, as it means he doesn’t have to decide, but the decision being made for him is one he agrees with.  And somehow, for one reason or another, he ends up in rehab. 

            Thus begins the rehabilitation process.  That means working with and being part of the process where an individual regains their self-worth and starts envisioning a future which includes a life with family, love and production.  Rehabilitating them to discover they are “okay”, they are in fact good people and they actually like themselves.  That remarkable, life changing evolution, that process is why we do what we do.

            I remember one student came in, jaded after being in and enduring several other rehabs and commented on the students he saw walking around grinning, joking and apparently have a good time.  Patients in rehabs just don’t do that and he felt something was wrong.  Rehab patients are usually sullen, carrying grudges, going through the motions of “group” and other activities, only superficially doing “well” in order to get through and leave in order to get back to their life of getting high.  

            Graduating a few months later, he tried to explain to the new arrivals that as strange as it may seem, they too will be the “grinning fools” they now view so skeptically.  They too will discover they are worth investing time and energy into, there is hope, and an attainable end. That are now free of the slavery that addiction inevitably is.  Now free to be, free to do, free to have.

            This is why we do what we do at Narconon.  Some of the staff have themselves been salvaged by the Narconon program and have decided they want to create or help create those sorts of changes in others.  We are proud of our efforts to help and applaud others who also help assist addicts in achieving sobriety.  

Written By Tom Stiener

As a two time liver transplant and kidney transplant recipient, Tom knows more than most how very

important life is and that it cannot be taken for granted. It is with that motivation, he resoundingly joined

forces with his life’s partner (and wife) Cathy, Dr. Rohit Adi and Kelley Keeney to form the Board of

Directors of Narconon New Life Retreat. His love for his fellow mankind fueled the establishment of Narconon

as a means for addicts to find themselves and sobriety.

His skill at financial management and savvy has resulted in a sound financially management for

Narconon as a non-profit corporation. Earlier non-profits he managed were also steered

towards financial solvency and stability with Tom filling the role of Chief Financial Officer at each of them.

A singer and song-writer at heart, Tom plays guitar and writes songs about his experiences and travels.  He shares these from time to time with students at the “Open Mic Nights” he hosts twice a month on Sunday nights at Narconon Louisiana. He also enjoys traveling with his wife Cathy and they currently have two dogs they take on the road with them.